


It's All True: Re-Reading "The Reichenbach Fall"

by PlaidAdder



Series: Sherlock Meta [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Meta, Nonfiction, Reichenbach Fall, empty hearse, reboots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 22:32:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3225932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlaidAdder/pseuds/PlaidAdder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The Empty Hearse" was not a sequel to "Reichenbach Fall." It is essentially a reboot, a la "Day of the Doctor," whereby Steven Moffat destroys a backstory—one created largely by another writer—that interferes with his new plan for the show. I am referring to the fraud plot, which is the part of TRF’s plot most obviously made up from whole cloth by Stephen Thompson—and which is to all intents and purposes erased and forgotten in "The Empty Hearse."</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All True: Re-Reading "The Reichenbach Fall"

 

  * I don’t rewatch “Reichenbach Fall” much, because, you know, it’s painful. (I have yet to reach the stage of  _Sherlock_ fandom where I sit there on the sofa with wildly staring eyes screaming  _Hurt me again! HURT ME MORE!_ ) But having taken another look at it, I have come to a somewhat different interpretation of the episode and its relationship to “The Empty Hearse,” which finally allows me to make sense of something that has been driving me nuts for a long time: the lie from the roof.

You know. The part where Sherlock, before making John witness his ‘death,’ tells him that in fact he really was a fraud and everything John thought he knew about him was a lie. I may possibly have mentioned it before.

Here’s my first decision:

"The Empty Hearse" was not a sequel to "Reichenbach Fall." It is essentially a reboot, a la "Day of the Doctor," whereby Steven Moffat destroys a backstory—one created largely by another writer—that interferes with his new plan for the show. I am referring to the fraud plot, which is the part of TRF’s plot most obviously made up from whole cloth by Stephen Thompson—and which is to all intents and purposes erased and forgotten in "The Empty Hearse."

I base this mainly on the fact that rewatching TRF confirmed for me that there is absolutely nothing about Cumberbatch’s performance—or Gatiss’s, for that matter—that prepares or predicts “The Empty Hearse’s” insistence that the fraud plot was really concocted by Sherlock and Mycroft and that Sherlock was never worried or bothered by Moriarty’s machinations in the least. We cannot simply assume that Sherlock is simply performing these emotions for John’s benefit (or Moriarty’s or Molly’s) because they are consistent even at moments when Sherlock is not being observed by other characters. These moments include the final call from the roof; it is of course important that he  _sound_ upset on the phone but John is definitely not going to see that little tear that falls as Sherlock starts telling him lies. They also include several moments during the confrontation at Kitty Riley’s house when nobody in the room is focused on him, but we the viewers can see him becoming increasingly agitated. Then of course there is Molly’s comment about Sherlock looking sad “when you think he can’t see you.”

I have not studied up on all the fanlore, and I’m sure people will write to correct me if I am wrong about this. But it doesn’t seem to me as if Cumberbatch had any idea, when filming TRF, of how his character’s motivations would be rebooted in TEH. Indeed, if it’s true that Amanda Abbington wasn’t told about Mary’s secret identity until after filming “The Sign of Three,” it would seem that lying to the actors is part of Mofftiss’s M.O., on the (accurate) assumption that by tricking them they will more effectively trick the audience. But it’s also possible that Mofftiss didn’t even know, at the time, that they were going to totally evacuate the fraud plot in TEH. On THAT point, don’t bother quoting me anything Moffat said about how long they were planning the ‘reveals’ in TEH, because I would not believe THAT guy if he told me that water is wet.

Anyway. The reboot thesis explains why John, in “Empty Hearse,” never refers to the fact that Sherlock lied to him about being a fraud before jumping. Moftiss don’t want him to care about it, or even remember it. From their point of view, none of that shit happened. We’re all postmodern here. There is no past. Memory is dead. Continuity is for your granny. Forward into the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

I will therefore adopt the position, vis a vis the fraud plot of TRF and the emotions generated by it, that I have taken on the Time War: It was all true, and (for the characters and the actors) ‘real’ at the time that it was made. The fact that Moftiss chose to falsify it in a later episode does not mean it was never real.

And now for my rereading of TRF, guided by the reboot thesis, with special reference to the fraud plot.

So. The lie from the roof.

I had always assumed that, despite all the craziness that goes down in Kitty Riley’s house, John never seriously considered believing the fraud story. The fraud stuff makes him very tense, and Moriarty’s act at Kitty’s house disorients him and makes him confused and very angry. He really, really wants the fraud thing to go away, because it’s making him crazy; but he’s the one who gets himself arrested by attacking the superintendent who insults Sherlock, and he’s the one who keeps telling Sherlock to STFU during that call from the roof, and who says at the gravesite that “no one will ever make me believe that you told me a lie.”

On rewatch, I still basically believe that. What looks different to me this time around is Sherlock’s reactions. On rewatch, it seems possible to me that, although John is not really taken in by the fraud narrative,  _Sherlock believes_ that John is losing faith in him. And that terrifies and angers him.

This would be perfectly consistent with Sherlock’s Series 2 characterization. Sherlock is still pretty new to this human relationship thing, and smart as he is, during Series 2 he makes some serious fucking mistakes when it comes to reading other people. Not only does he initially fail to realize that Irene Adler is playing him in “Scandal in Belgravia,” but he completely humiliates Molly by failing to grasp the fact that  _he_ is the crush she’s bought the present for.

Also recall that “The Hounds of Baskerville,” an episode nobody really talks about too much because it isn’t part of the Moriarty arc, is a pretty low point in the Sherlock/John relationship. While having his little mini-psychotic break after being hit with the Fear Fog, Sherlock finally crosses the line with John, and has to chase after him and reel him back in once he sobers up. Then, after John comes back, Sherlock decides to dose him with Fear Fog and give him terrifying hallucinations. One imagines the ride back to Baker Street after that was a mite tense.

Then, at the beginning of TRF, most of what we see John doing is acting as Sherlock’s handler/manager/agent. John is doing this out of love and concern for him—John realizes that if someone doesn’t teach Sherlock how not to be an asshole, he will not  survive his newfound publicity—but maybe Sherlock doesn’t realize that. Maybe he sees how naturally John seems to be taking to this role and assumes that John has more invested in Sherlock’s public image than he does in Sherlock himself.Sherlock comments on the fact that John seems very bothered by what the tabloids print about him. John sees his concern as protective—“sooner or later they’ll turn on you, they always do”—but maybe Sherlock doesn’t read it that way.John’s the one who’s getting famous by blogging about him; John’s the one who’s tried to make Sherlock a hero, despite Sherlock’s obvious discomfort with that role; John’s the one telling him to smile for the cameras; and, perhaps most important, John keeps telling him not to be himself. During that wonderful little scene in the car on the way to the trial, where it becomes clear that John and Sherlock have discussed his behavior in court hundreds of times already, Sherlock responds to John’s thousandth repetition of this advice with “I’ll just be myself,” to which John retorts, “Are you listening to me?” When Lestrade comes to take Sherlock in to talk to the kidnapping victim, and he’s beating around the bush and says, “If you could not…” Sherlock replies, “Be myself?” and Lestrade and John are both obviously relieved that he’s starting to get it. 

So with all this water under the bridge, it seems more likely that when Sherlock accuses John of letting the fraud story get to him, his anxiety is genuine. John’s response, which from his point of view is meant to be a reassuring bit of annoyed-yet-affectionate snark—“Nobody could fake being that much of an annoying dick ALL the time”—would not, in that case, be reassuring to Sherlock, who seems truly upset with what he perceives as John’s failure to realize that Moriarty is messing with his head.

With that in his memory, Sherlock then has to cope with John’s reaction to Moriarty’s sudden transformation at Kitty Riley’s. At times you can see Sherlock giving Moriarty a cold and baleful glance, hoping perhaps for an answering knowing glance which will at least reassure  _Sherlock,_ if nobody else, that Moriarty is still Moriarty. But there are also a number of points at which Sherlock just looks stunned and horrified. Since Sherlock is the only other person in the room whose own memory can conclusively falsify the Richard Brook story—he  _knows_ he hasn’t paid Moriarty to do any of this, whereas John can’t  _know_ it, he can only  _believe_ it—this can’t be about Sherlock starting to doubt himself. It seems much more likely to me that the reason Sherlock comes more and more unglued as the conversation rattles on is that he’s becoming convinced that John is falling for it—or that he will, inevitably,  _eventually_ fall for it, even if he’s putting up a fight now. “Explain this to me, Sherlock,” John says, staring at Moriarty, “because I am not getting it.” Sherlock, at the moment, can’t explain it—he doesn’t put it all together until that scene in the street outside—but where John is simply turning to Sherlock, as he always does, for the explanation that will make sense out of something that baffles John, Sherlock misreads that as a demand that he justify himself in the face of this new ‘evidence.’

This would explain why, when he concocts the fake death plan (remember, we’re engaging with TRF on its own terms now, and I think the performances clearly indicate that Sherlock comes up with this plan on the spur of the moment after he realizes that Moriarty’s ultimate plan is to kill him and thereby complete the narrative) he goes to Molly for help instead of bringing John in on it. He asks her whether she would still help him if he wasn’t who he was, or who people think he is. That’s because, if we’re doing this reading, he doesn’t believe that John would. Sherlock thinks at this point that if John can no longer believe in Sherlock the genius and Sherlock the hero, he will have no further use for or loyalty to Sherlock the broken and lost human being. Whereas Molly, who has already told him he can ‘have her’ if he needs her, will.

So this finally brings us to the lie from the roof. And now, finally, we have some motivation.

Of course we could assume it is purely strategic, and that he tells John this because he wants John to disseminate the information and thereby convince Moriarty and his organization that their plan worked and both Sherlock and his legend are dead. Sure. But we can also now understand it emotionally. If Sherlock, at this point, sees John as someone who is fighting to stay loyal to him even though he no longer actually believes in him, the lie can be read as his attempt to release John from an increasingly painful position. By confirming the fraud story himself, Sherlock absolves John of whatever guilt he would feel about finally accepting the Richard Brook story, as Sherlock believes he inevitably will; and, in his own mind, by killing off Sherlock Hero, he protects John from grief, since he believes John doesn’t care about him as a human being. It could also be read as a test—as Sherlock’s last attempt to get some reassurance from John that he might still believe in him. It could be read as act of jealousy and anger, whereby Sherlock punishes John by killing off his ‘rival,’ Sherlock Hero—the imaginary man who (he believes) John loves more than Sherlock himself.

And it could be, and I’m thinking probably is, all of the above. Cause this is the first time we’ve seen Sherlock cry.

The moment at the grave would then take on extra significance, because it’s the point at which Sherlock—if in fact he can hear what John is saying—realizes that he was misjudging John the whole time. In that sense, that final shot of Sherlock looking inscrutably into the distance is not just a Dramatic Reveal for the audience, but a moment at which we see Sherlock reassessing the situation and trying to analyze it from his new perspective. 

And it would kind of have been interesting to find out what happened next. But of course what happens next is that all of this gets wiped out in the reboot.





End file.
